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Friday, April 21, 2017

Finally, Krugman finds hope in Elizabeth Warren. Maybe this means he is tired sucking his thumb over Hillary's loss and ready to return to a progressive agenda he can fight for. It's still "anybody but Bernie" no doubt, but at least its got him to stop whining....

Furthermore, Warren comes down forcefully on the left side of an ongoing debate over both the causes of inequality and the ways it can be reduced.

One view, which was dominant even among Democratic-leaning economists in the 1990s, saw rising inequality mainly as a result of ineluctable market forces. Technology, in particular... Given this view, even liberals generally favored free-market policies. ...

The alternative view, which Warren clearly endorses, is all for taxing the rich and strengthening the safety net, but it also argues that public policy can do a lot to increase workers' bargaining power — and that inequality has soared in large part because policy has, in fact, gone the other way.

This view has gained much more prominence over the past couple of decades, mainly because it's now backed by a lot of evidence...

But why has actual policy gone the other way? ...

Consider ... West Virginia, where Obamacare cut the number of uninsured by about 60 percent, where minimum wage hikes and revived unions could do wonders for workers in health care and social services, the state's largest industry. That is, it's a perfect example of a state that would benefit hugely from an enlightened-populist agenda.

But last November West Virginia went almost three-to-one for a very unenlightened populist...

But maybe it's a matter of time, and what Democrats need right now is a reason to keep fighting. And that's something Warren's muscular, unapologetic book definitely offers. It's an important contribution, even if it isn't the last word.